Questioning Question Time…

On Thursday, Nick Griffin, MEP and leader of the racist British National Party, will take a seat on the much-hallowed panel of BBC Question Time…and I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it.

The BBC’s argument for including the party on the show is that, having recently won two seats on the European Parliament, the BNP are now a legitimate UK political party, with undeniable voter support, whom they cannot simply ignore.  Just as they occasionally allow members of UKIP and the Green Party to sit on the Question Time panel, it is only fair, they say, to offer the same courtesy to the recently elected BNP, no matter how reprehensible their views might be to the majority of the British public.

But are the BNP really the same sort of entity as UKIP or the Greens?  Should an illegally constituted and inherently racist, white supremacist political party really be sharing a podium on national television with members of the Labour Party, Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats?

On the one hand, my dual beliefs in both freedom of speech and in the inherent paucity of substance that lie at the centre of idiotic far-right views lead me immediately to an I don’t agree with what you say, but I’ll fight to the death your right to say it kind of position: the only way to deal with deplorable and fascistic points of view is to expose them to the glare of public scrutiny and watch them shrivel and die. 

Once Griffin and his followers receive a loudspeaker from which to publically hurl their hate, reasonable people, it is hoped, will then hear their assorted nonsenses and see them for the empty-headed fallacies that they are. 

It is only by repressing and hiding vile and unsustainable philosophies such as these that we give them their power.  They become the “truths the powers-that-be don’t want you to know” instead of what they really are: hollow ciphers of ignorance and intolerance that manipulate political confusion and prey on the intellectually vulnerable.

By taking away the cloak of mystique and and disallowing fascists to hide in the shadows of their marginalization, we educate the public and expose racist scoundrels for what they are.  We see that these unjustifiable intolerances have no viable foundations on which they can be defended logically, rationally or morally, and that, under the most basic line of questioning, their positions indubitably fall apart. 

The issue vis-a-vis Question Time, however, isn’t so cut and dried.

Although I agree that the best way of destroying the BNP is by exposing their heinous views to public scrutiny and convincingly discrediting them through argument and debate, it does not necessarily follow that Question Time is the correct platform on which to do that.

Whilst, say, a documentary-style feature that demolished BNP positions one by one – allowing people like Griffin to defend their poisonous views as much as possible, only for them to inevitably fall victim to the vastly superior arguments and indisputable facts put forth by their opponents – (or even a one-off live debate special between BNP leadership and a collection of anti-fascist campaigners, human rights advocates, and members of the general public) would be a possible way for the BBC to acknowledge the depressing fact that two of these racists now have seats on the European Parliament, Question Time is a different beast altogether.  Question Time is not meant to be about putting each individual panellist on trial, but rather about answering the political questions of the day with a distinguished panel of politicians and cultural figures; the underlying assumption being that everyone on the panel is similarly qualified to answer the questions being put to them.

By appearing on the Question Time panel, your political voice becomes inherently legitimized.

Question Time is not a show designed to dissect BNP policies and Nick Griffin’s personal racism, but a show where the panellists are supposed to give their opinion on all the issues of the day – tax, immigration, law and order, foreign policy, the NHS, postal strikes…whatever.  When we sit there and ask someone like Nick Griffin what he thinks about the ongoing dispute between the CWU and Royal Mail, or what the BNP’s position might be on the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen, we are not exposing the British National Party to the glare of public scrutiny – we are accepting them into British political establishment as equals, whose views are as legitimate as those of the current Cabinet, or the major opposition parties, and something about that gives me a slightly sick feeling in my belly.

It is one thing to recognize that, unfortunately, a small minority of the British public voted for the racist British National Party in the European Elections this year, and to want to create a dialogue about that fact instead of sweeping it under the rug…but it is quite another to pretend that this is a political party like any other.

The BNP are, without a shadow of a doubt, a white supremacist party, who have only now, under the threat of legal action, started looking into changing their constitution of their party to allow non-white members.  Not because they want non-white membership (or because they actually think there are any non-white people who would want to join once the constitution is changed), but because they must either do that or face drastic criminal charges that will end their political life.

Let’s just say that again for those who are hard of hearing: in 2009, the same year that the United States voted in the first African American President in history, the BNP quite literally do not allow people who aren’t white to be a member of their party.

Whilst I still do think that exposing people like Nick Griffin and the racist British National Party to public scrutiny is the best course of action, and that no view, no matter how reprehensible, should ever be censored…I remain unconvinced that denying a guest-spot on Question Time to the BNP is censorship.  There are many other television-based platforms and many other ways in which this discussion about the BNP could have been constructively held, but the one which gives these unashamed racists the appearance of political legitimacy leaves a very sour taste in my mouth indeed.

Still, I think it’s wise here to remember the words of John Stuart Mill:

“the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.  If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

Though Question Time might well be the “wrong” platform on which the BNP should be trounced, it is still as good a place as any for Nick Griffin to have his litany of errors collide with the shining light of truth.  The BBC could have handled this better, sure, but either way the conclusion is the same: we can only defeat ignorance by exposure and education, and it is my hope that on Thursday night, the BNP will be exposed.

Technorati Tags: UK Politics,Racism,Philosophy,Question Time,BBC,John Stuart Mill,Free Speech,BNP

Royal Mail hires 30,000 workers to crush strike | UK news | The Observer

Well…yesterday I speculated about whether the recent job ads I had received from Royal Mail might be an attempt to hire a union-busting replacement workforce…it appears my speculations might have been bang on the money…

Royal Mail hires 30,000 workers to crush strike | UK news | The Observer

Technorati Tags: Royal Mail,Postal Strikes,CWU,UK Politics,Politics

The Queen is a Patron of Terror!

With a week that has seen one environmental activist arrested for suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage, and four other climate activists detained for attempting to travel to Copenhagen in advance of the UN climate talks being held there this December, I was amused to see a flier today in my local library advertising the huge “The Wave” event planned for December 5th in London.

My amusement was not at the event itself; in fact, my wife and I are planning to attend the protest ourselves, and I highly recommend anyone reading this who cares about the environment to do the same.  For those who don’t know, it’s a mass march planned in London on December 5th (dress-code: blue), starting at Grosvenor Square at 12pm, and ending at Parliament by 3pm, with the aim of encircling Parliament and forming, quite literally, a human wave of change.

No.

My amusement was because this particular flier was on behalf of the RSPB, a charity whose Royal Patron is none other than Queen Elizabeth II.

As eco-activists are more and more being treated like criminals and terrorists in this country, being arrested under Prevention of Terrorism laws and conspiracy charges – indeed, as protest itself is being increasingly repressed and criminalized – it will be interesting to see what happens on December 5th. 

If “The Wave”, like every other radical mass-protest on London before it, is deemed in any way criminal by an over-reactive police force, or if any of its organizers or participants find themselves arrested on yet more jumped up charges of conspiracy-to-reduce-climate-change, one has to wonder: as Royal Patron of an organization involved in these allegedly despicable acts, will Queen Elizabeth herself now be culpable as a sponsor of radical eco-extremists?

Technorati Tags: Environment,Protest,Queen Elizabeth II,The Wave,London,RSPB,Police Repression,UK Politics,Politics

Government Sponsored Union Busting

Last night the BBC revealed on its Newsnight programme, a secret internal document from Royal Mail management regarding their strategy to force through so-called “modernization” reforms, with or without the engagement of the unions; a leaked “Strategic Overview” which has led some to believe that the company is preparing for a stealth de-recognition of the Communication Worker’s Union, a move that Royal Mail has strenuously denied.

The contempt for the CWU is clear, however, when the document explains that they will: “through a mix of pressures bring union to the point where doing a deal on our terms is preferable to the alternative…if they refuse, we have positioned things in such a way as there is shareholder, customer and internal support for implementation of change without agreement.”

The document also embraces the idea that the impending strikes can be used as an “enabler” to push forward their own aims.

“strikes make things worse – the more we can demonstrate this to our people the better.”

I wonder if this internal planning has anything to do with the sudden Royal Mail job openings that have recently come up in my own local area? 

As it happens, until the past couple of years, I used to think that being a postman would be kind of a dream job for me.  I get up early anyway; I love post; and any job where I can spend a couple of hours each morning taking a brisk walk whilst listening to my iPod, and then have the rest of the day to myself, seemed like a pretty perfect deal.  As such, I signed up to the Royal Mail jobs alert emails thinking, if ever I was looking for work and a local postman opportunity arose, it would be well worth looking into.

Well, three days ago I received word that there were new postie jobs all around me and at first I assumed it was something to do with Christmas.  Now, however, I wonder if it is something to do with union-busting – hiring a replacement workforce in the event of prolonged industrial action?

I obviously have no evidence that it is anything other than honourable…but I do know that if someone like me were to apply for one of the posts now suddenly on offer all around Birmingham, they would not be – as yet –a member of the CWU, and thus possibly ineligible for taking the strike action?  It’s just a thought – but if Royal Mail’s plans are to force through their changes with or without union agreement, what’s to stop them from hiring non-union workers too?

This is pure speculation at this point, but what I think is important to remember is that the true colours of this company were revealed last night on Newsnight.  They are planning a war.  They are planning on making no compromises and they are planning on getting what they want by any means necessary.

It should also be noted that the “shareholder” referred to in the leaked document is the government.

Royal Mail is planning on ignoring the unions, smashing the rights of every single British postal worker, and disrupting the lives of all of us by refusing to make a fair agreement on modernization…and they are doing all of this with the blessed consent of our leaders.

Technorati Tags: Royal Mail,Postal Strikes,BBC,Newsnight,CWU,UK Politics,Politics

US mixed race couple denied marriage licence

Literally: wow.  This is 2009 and jackasses like this still exist….

US mixed race couple denied marriage licence  - The Guardian 16/10/09

Technorati Tags: US Politics,Politics,Racism

A Number of Issues…

A busy week has left little time to blog, but here’s a quick round-up of some of the issues currently weighing on my mind…

First of all, I was pretty sickened to hear Gordon Brown begin the first Prime Minister’s Questions of the new season by solemnly announcing the names of all the British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the last session of Parliament…only to then pledge to send yet more troops into the region and continue a ninth year of this unjust and unnecessary war.

If we’re going to have somebody announce the names of the dead, let’s not make it be the very same man who sent them to their death!  And if it has to be that same man, then don’t let his encore performance be the pledge to send 500 more lambs to the slaughter!

*

I was, however, heartened to witness the blogosphere and twitterati do wonders for freedom of speech on Monday with the case of Trafigura’s failed attempt at gagging the Guardian newspaper. 

After reading a bizarre story in the paper that morning, claiming that it had been legally barred from reporting a certain story (and couldn’t even explain who was involved and why they were not allowed to report it), my Facebook page began to come alive with people forwarding information released across the internet, exposing the details of the case.  In short, the MP Paul Farrelly had tabled a question regarding the implications for press freedom following a previous court order obtained by the oil company against the Guardian and other media outlets, regarding a report about the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.

The gagging-order had been meant to silence the newspaper, and prevent any public discussion about these allegations of waste-dumping; instead, it served only to highlight the issue, and by lunchtime that day the court order was overturned thanks to an influx of blog posts and tweets making the original ban redundant.

What would have probably only been a small, two or three paragraph story, quickly forgotten, became a much spotlighted scandal instead.  Freedom of speech: 1.  Trafigura: 0.

*

One of the myths that continues to harm feminism in the twenty-first century, is that sexism is dead, and the fight for equality has therefore already been won.  The argument goes: women are no longer barred from applying for, and getting, top jobs, so sexism in the workplace clearly no longer exists.  Research into the area, however, shows that whilst women can apply for these jobs, and technically the prejudices of the past have now been overcome, in reality the mere fact that such jobs are open to women is not the same as giving women equality, because other social expectations forced onto women (childrearing, for example) still conflict with the high time demands of the majority of executive jobs.  Although the opportunity remains there to apply, to do so would require impossible sacrifice.

I mention this because I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard that the racist British National Party were finally thinking of changing their constitution and allowing non-white members to join, after the Equality and Human Rights Commission began legal proceedings against them.

Though the BNP may well open up their membership to non-whites now that they have been forced to…do they really think that any self-respecting black or Asian person in this country would want to join this actively racist party?

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Speaking of racists and idiotic white people, I am so glad to hear that the Barack Obama Whitehouse have finally come out and publically acknowledged that the FOX News Network should not be treated as a real news network, but as a propaganda-peddling partisan arm of the Republican Party.

That this is true, is, of course, obvious.  But as long as Presidents and other Democratic politicians continue to legitimize its delusion by appearing on the network, it remains a dangerous presence.  Now that the gloves have come off and the veneer of respectability had been removed, perhaps the rest of the American people might take note and wake up from its hate-spewing stupor?

*

Of course, Obama is far from perfect.  Considering that al-Qaeda basically is Pakistan these days, it’s hard to see how today’s announcement of a $7.5bn aid plan for Pakistan isn’t aiding and abetting terrorism?

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And why, exactly, are we supposed to be happy that Goldman Sachs announced a $3bn profit?

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Finally…for those following the long history of UK police using anti-terrorism laws to repress political protest, take note.  A report in the Guardian today suggests that they are now using conspiracy to commit criminal damage laws that carry ten year jail sentences against climate change protesters.  The reason: conspiracy charges means that you can arrest potential protesters before the protest actually happens; stopping an organized protest when it is still only in the planning stage.

What freedom of speech wins with one hand, appears taken away by another…

Technorati Tags: Politics,UK Politics,US Politics,Gordon Brown,Afghanistan,War on Terror,Environment,Protest,BNP,Fox News,Trafigura,Guardian,Free Speech,Goldman Sachs,Barack Obama,Pakistan

Shock and Poor

Gordon Brown’s announcement today that he will be trying to sell off £16bn worth of government-owned assets is another worrying sign of the people in power using the current economic crisis to push through any old policy that they want, all in the name of saving our economy.

Echoing the MO illustrated so thoroughly in Naomi Klein’s excellent book, The Shock Doctrine, the chaos of last year’s banks and business collapse has already seen the mass plundering of the welfare state by our governments in order to needlessly bail-out the rich.  Now, with the public’s coffers completely depleted through the expense of all these bailouts (and the continuing funding of two seemingly never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) we are seeing phase two of disaster capitalism at work: the manufactured claim that the welfare state – no longer financially solvent – cannot, therefore, be afforded.

The money isn’t there, we are told. 

The country is in terrible debt. 

Things will have to change.

But instead of raising the taxes of the rich business-owners and bonus-claiming bankers who created this economic mess in the first place, and who have benefitted tremendously from the daylight-robbery of the bailouts, we are told that the only solution to our financial problems is to make cuts in public spending for the poor; to enact drastic pay freezes for public sector workers; to enforce cost-cutting redundancies all across the workforce; and now, to sell off yet more of the public’s collective assets to private businesses so that they can use them for private profit.

These are not the only solutions, but the sheer shock of the the scale of economic disaster – or at least the perception of such a disaster, as was sold to us in the press – has made us vulnerable and bewildered.  In the wake of all this trauma, we’re too stunned and confused to question the policies are leaders continue to insist are “good” for us, or “vital” for economic recovery, but by the time we wake up from the numbness of our stupor, it will already be too late and the theft will be complete.

Our benefits axed, our assets sold, our pensions stripped and our jobs lost forever; we will finally come to our senses and find that, in its sleep, the country has been robbed.

Technorati Tags: Economy,Economic Crisis,Gordon Brown,Shock Doctrine,Naomi Klein,Public Spending,Public Assets,Cuts,UK Politics,Politics

Technorati and Amazon: WTF?

A few weeks back I got an email from the folks at Technorati and in it they mentioned that they were looking for new writers for a new and improved Technorati Blog.

Remembering the first time I ever wrote a politics column for a fanzine (an ad in the back of Scanner – I applied on a whim and, whadda ya know: I got the post!  Suddenly, I panicked, I actually have to do this: what the hell am I going to write!?! …but maybe that’s a story for another time, on another blog…) I thought: “why not!”, and sent off an application to be a UK Politics writer.  I was doing stuff about politics anyway on my old blog, and was already thinking about starting up this new politics-only blog, so I figured – why not get a little more exposure and work with Technorati too?

Well – here’s why not.

Yesterday, I received an email from the Technorati folk: “The Time Has Come To Write for Technorati”, it told me.

How exciting, I thought, I’m really going to get to do this!

But then I read the small-print.

At first it all seemed fine and dandy – apply for a special new account, send an email to the executive editor explaining who you are and what you do, fill in your online bio stuff and then blog away….

But it was the “blog away” stuff that caught my attention, because the following little gem lay waiting for me in the new Technorati “Posting Instructions”:

“4. Please LINK TO AT LEAST ONE AMAZON PRODUCT in every post.

“a) To get the code (ASIN) for your item(s), go to

http://www.amazon.com/ (U.S. Amazon), do a search for the product or topic using the search box. Click on the appropriate item(s), which will take you to the product page. On the product page, scroll down to the "Product Details" section and find the ASIN. (Speed hint: this ASIN is always in the URL of the product.) Some books in Amazon don't have an ASIN, use the ISBN.

“b) Type or paste the ASIN code into the Amazon ASINs and/or Review ASINs fields. The ASIN/ISBN is always 10 digits long -- please do not include any additional code.

“c) You can list up to 10 ASINs on any given post. Separate them with a COMMA: no space, no line break, and please make sure there are NO EMPTY SPACES OR LINE BREAKS after your final ASIN. “

Later on in the list of instructions for new writers, alongside no-brainer things like: “Read Technorati regularly, participate in the conversation by commenting on stories…respond to comments on your own posts, and link to individual Technorati stories that catch your eye from your own site as often as possible”, another Amazon-friendly instruction awaited:

“Purchase Amazon items through Technorati. We get credit for any Amazon item you purchase if you access Amazon via Technorati: just click on an Amazon product at the top or bottom of any story, or use the Amazon links on the sidebars. This helps cover our ever-growing expenses. Thanks. “

Now maybe I’m over-reacting here, but I signed up under the impression that I would be writing about UK Politics for a well-known blogging engine, not becoming a salesman for Amazon.com!

Needless to say, I will not be taking this thing any further.

Exposure might be nice, but not when it means imbedding forced advertising all around my chosen article.

I know that the Technorati guys have to pay their bills – but it is one thing to have ads on your site, and another to get individual bloggers to include Amazon-only links in every single one of their posts – by executive order.

Here, on my own blog, I may not get the traffic Technorati hopes to achieve, but at least I know that I can link to what I like, and don’t have to work as an unofficial marketing-man for an ethically dubious company like Amazon.  It may not be much, but it is something…and as this blog is as easy for anyone in the world to plug into as Technorati, I just don’t see why I’d want to sacrifice that integrity just to take a short-cut to numerical popularity?

Advertising is everywhere in this godforsaken world – can’t we just have a few decent spaces where we can read some stuff in peace – without having something someone wants us to buy forced down our throats?

Well, here on The Tone of Our Oppression you can.

I am assuming on the new Technorati, however, you cannot.

Technorati Tags: Technorati,Blogging,Amazon,Corporate Sponsorship,Media,Advertising,Propaganda,Manipulation

George Osborne’s £3bn Mistake

Hilarious news in this morning’s Guardian:

Revealed: £3bn mistake in George Osborne's budget plan - The Guardian, 10/10/09

Oh dear - It appears that, alongside all the other problems with Osborne’s Conference speech, Mr. Austerity got his numbers wrong :-)

Technorati Tags: UK Politics,Politics,George Osborne,Conservative Party Conference,Conservative Party,Public Spending,Cuts,General Election

The X-Factorization of British Politics

I don’t mean to sound insensitive here: I think the death of a child is a heart-breaking tragedy.  What bothers me though, is the amount of play David Cameron’s empty, platitude-filled speech on the last day of the Conservative Party Conference has been getting vis-a-vis the “emotional” moment when he spoke about the death of his disabled six year old, Ivan.

“When such a big part of your life suddenly ends nothing else – nothing outside – matters. It's like the world has stopped turning and the clocks have stopped ticking."

I couldn’t help but feel – every time the news report said something to the effect of: “but then Cameron spoke of the loss of his six year old son” – that we were seeing that bit in X-Factor where the contestant rolls out their sob story to gain the sympathy of the voting public.

“I’m doing this for my dead father who would’ve wanted me to follow my dreams….”

“It’s been a really hard year for me because my sister died of cancer just after Christmas and my dog got run over by a school-bus in May…”

I was almost expecting a few bars of Coldplay in the background and a slow-mo shot of Cameron wiping away devastated tears as he gets comforted by Dermot O’Leary.

The X-Factorization of British Politics is complete – emotive sob stories that blind you from any real substance the candidates might have, a limited pool of real talent from which to vote, and a foregone and manipulated conclusion as to who the winner will be.

Now here’s a deficit-busting solution for the 2010 General Election: a premium number phone vote! 

Put the election on a Saturday night, reel off a few well produced VT packages to sell the respective parties, have Simon Cowell and a few other unqualified guest panellists share their irrelevant sound-bite opinions and then let the public pay £1 a call to vote for their favourite MPs!  Democracy’s already a farce of public relations and spin, but at least this way we might raise a little money without public spending cuts?

Technorati Tags: X-Factor,UK Politics,David Cameron,Conservative Party Conference,Conservative Party,General Election,cuts,Public Spending,David Cameron Speech,Ivan,Mawkish,Politics

Skirting the Issue…

Has anyone else noticed that today’s coverage of the impending postal strikes has been heavy with the “oh my god – what about the Christmas cards and utility bills!” type-arguments and basically non-existent with the Communication Workers Union’s actual reasons for wanting a strike?

Certainly the TV news I was watching this morning simply referred to “a dispute over pay and pensions”, whilst simultaneously showing contradictory images of a demonstration by postal workers holding banners that quite clearly said: “THIS DISPUTE IS NOT ABOUT PAY”.

Indeed, the BBC’s own website paints a slightly muddier picture once you delve deep enough to find its Q&A on the Postal Dispute:

the CWU “while it accepts the need for job cuts in principle…has called a national ballot because Royal Mail managers are refusing to meet its demand for a signed agreement determining the scope of cuts, and job and pay security guarantees for those workers who will ultimately remain in their jobs…The CWU instead accuses the Royal Mail of trying to drive through redundancies.”

Already we see a shift in emphasis and sympathy: a dispute over redundancies is a very different thing than a dispute over pay.

When one hears about a group striking and causing massive disruption all around the country because they want more money, the immediate inclination is to think of them as “greedy” and dismiss the strike as a selfish inconvenience.  When you hear it is over possible redundancies, however, and realise that it is not about selfishness, but about people’s livelihood, suddenly the sympathy rises and the strikes swell with popular support.

Even then though, it is not as simple as the BBC makes out.

As the CWU’s own website adds: “Royal Mail is trying to impose change by dictate, constantly driving down [our] terms and conditions and imposing unfair work rates to meet unrealistic local budget demands. [Postal workers] are delivering more mail, handling more work and working harder for longer whilst doubling annual profits. Where's [their] reward for this?”

This is not just a dispute about pay, pensions and jobs – it is a dispute about the “£2.1bn modernisation plan that is introducing more and more automation in sorting offices” (BBC)

For “modernization” read “private takeover and desire to make profit”.  Last year, for the first time in twenty years, Royal Mail made money…now the managers want to make lots, lots more.  This “modernization” plan to do so involves laying off human workers to replace them with high-tech sorting machines, firing individual posties who make their deliveries on foot or by bike and replacing them with “more efficient” postal vehicles, and making impossible demands of those postal workers who still keep their jobs, like the unsustainable delivery speeds of 2.2 miles an hour plus, reported last year.

What the CWU have asked for, is proper consultation between the union and management regarding the extent and necessity of lay-offs.

How many workers will be fired? 

How much will the pay of those who stay be effected through these “streamlining” efforts? 

How will their conditions improve and what guarantees can be made for their job safety in future?

They are not trying to arbitrarily push up their workers’ wages; they are not trying to be unreasonable and demand that no one lose their jobs.  They are simply asking for a fair and up-front consultation and compromise between management and workers about a highly volatile issue.

For this, their cause is ridiculed or misrepresented in the press.

Worse: it is actively undermined by the media’s emphasis on how the strikes will effect consumers (will I get my credit card bills in time; will my mother’s birthday card get lost in the mail forever?) instead of why the union is feeling the need to strike.

By doing this, the public are left with an incomplete, and very negative view of the strikes – greedy postal workers are going to ruin Christmas and lose me my early payment discounts on utility bills because they want more pay and a bigger pension – instead of the more accurate view: the part-privatization of Royal Mail has led to a bunch of greedy managers ruining Christmas and disrupting the mail because they want to fire as many people as possible to make as much blood money as they can.

Technorati Tags: Royal Mail,Postal Strikes,CWU,UK Politics,Politics,Industrial Action

Afghanistan: Eight Years On…

The questions of whether or not to increase troop presence in Afghanistan and how we can possibly “win” there at this stage are distractions from the real issue that hasn’t changed in eight long years:

We have absolutely no right to be in Afghanistan.

For some reason this war maintains a sheen of respectability and justification around it, even as we balk in horror at the atrocities we have knowingly committed in Iraq.

That we were brought into Iraq through lies about weapons of mass destruction is now a matter of undisputed fact; that the war there continues to be an unjustified act of aggression – a hostile invasion – is pretty much impossible to deny.  Yet Afghanistan, invaded eight years ago today, in the shadow of 9/11, is viewed as a different story altogether.

There were no lies told here about secret weapons programmes or violations of UN agreements, there were simply the deaths of nearly three thousand Americans and the desire to make the perpetrators pay.

But this simply isn’t the truth.

The country of Afghanistan was not responsible for the shocking attacks on America made by nineteen individual hijackers (none of whom were Afghani) on September 11th, 2001.  These hijackers worked alone; one autonomous cell out of many loosely affiliated groups around the world who are financed, in part, by extremists like Osama bin Laden. 

Their horrific acts of terror were not the aggressive first strikes of a hostile nation’s war against America, but the desperate and deadly stunt of nineteen very disturbed individuals with a personal political vendetta against the United States.

They were criminal acts – deserving of the most severe punishments of law enforcement.  Though the attackers themselves were now dead, their supporters and financers could have been tracked down, arrested, and brought swiftly to justice.  Their assets could have been frozen, their networks severed and destroyed, and not a single person would have opposed such legal and righteous actions as they remembered the awful images of that nightmare September day.

The FBI could have been heroes; the 3,000 dead could have had their tragedies avenged…

Instead though – the decision was made to attack Afghanistan, under the claim that they were harbouring 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and “if you harbour terrorists, you are a terrorist”.

This claim contains two assumptions, both demonstrably false.

Firstly, the idea that Afghanistan was “harbouring” bin Laden. 

In reality, the ruling Taliban offered to extradite him several times, providing the US could furnish them with sufficient evidence that proved bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

The US refused to offer any proof, so Afghanistan refused to hand Osama over.  Which brings me to assumption number two: the idea that Osama bin Laden’s culpability was, at this point, indisputably proven.

Any proof the US government had, if any, on October 7th, 2001, that the 9/11 attacks were definitely and indisputably masterminded by Osama bin Laden, however, is hard to find.  Bin Laden himself hadn’t even admitted any culpability yet, and as late as June 2002, FBI director Robert Mueller was testifying in Senate hearings to only “thinking” and “believing” that bin Laden was responsible, not yet knowing.

To this day, no definitive proof has been offered to the general public that ineluctably proves bin Laden himself asked for and planned the 9/11 attacks.

It certainly wasn’t offered in October, 2001; not to us, or to the Afghanistan government who asked for it.

That is not to say that bin Laden wasn’t guilty – only to say that, without knowing for sure, then we can’t then say that the Taliban were “harbouring” those responsible for 9/11 in October, 2001. 

And even if they were, there is still another crucial step in the chain of responsibility that is missing from the decision to bomb the country of Afghanistan for the crimes of the individual, Osama bin Laden: as a sovereign nation with its own system of law and order, the Afghani government does not have to extradite anyone within their borders if they don’t feel there is sufficient evidence against them, but that does not equate to their giving support for, or involvement in, any of the crimes the suspected individual might have committed under international law.

We have not, to this day, had any proof that the Afghani Taliban themselves had any involvement in the masterminding of the 9/11 attacks, nor any of the Afghani people (for, again, not a single one of the nineteen hijackers, or bin Laden himself, is Afghani).  So the leap from the extremist Taliban “harbouring” bin Laden to declaring war on the entire country of Afghanistan is spurious at best, a war-crime at worst.

Afghanistan had not attacked the United States, not had it threatened to do so in the future. 

In October, 2001, it was merely a country in which Osama bin Laden was alleged to be hiding; an allegation the leaders of that country wanted conclusive proof of before they handed him over.

There was no justification – either legal or moral – for the invasion of Afghanistan on October 7th, 2001, and now, eight years later, there remains no legitimate justification for our being there still. 

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan,Eight Anniversary of war in Afghanistan,War on Terror,US Politics,UK Politics,Foreign Policy,Military,Political Philosophy,Politics,9/11,War,Just War Theory

Troops to Teachers?

I wonder how long it will be before putting soldiers in every classroom turns into: “everyone should do a little character-building military service to iron out these discipline problems.  Hey, I know!  Why don’t we bring back conscription?”

This morning, shadow schools secretary, Michael Gove, announced that, under a Tory government – alongside a stealth privatization plan to end the “state monopoly” of schools and turn more and more “failing” schools into privately sponsored “academies” – a new emphasis on student discipline will see Army professionals entering the classroom in a “troops to teachers” programme designed to use military-style regulation to keep our children in line.

On top of a renewed emphasis on school uniform – blazers and ties (straightjackets and leashes) – this comes, of course, alongside an earlier announcement to reintroduce learning by rote, and assorted other 1950s educational methods, into contemporary schooling if the Tories get elected to power in 2010.

Do we really want a generation of robot children – regurgitating whatever they are told, without question, under the watchful eye of intimidating soldiers?  Do we really want a “state monopoly” of schools to be replaced with a curriculum designed by private enterprise, looking only to create the next generation of workers instead of well-rounded human beings? 

I will admit, there are countless problems with the education as it is, and has been, under Labour – but lack of discipline is not the problem; it is a symptom.

School kids misbehave and act unruly only when they are not engaged; when the lessons they are being taught seem pointless and removed from anything useful or interesting in their lives.

I say this from experience – I am a fairly bright and inquisitive person who got straight As at A-Level, a first class BA, a Masters degree (with distinction) and a Ph.D., yet I absolutely hated school. 

Whilst I got As in the subjects that I enjoyed at GCSE level, in subjects where the teachers were dull, the content was mind-numbing, and the purpose was unclear, I couldn’t give a damn. 

I messed around; I chatted; I played up.

I had the capability to be a fantastic student at school, but even someone like me became undisciplined under the yawn-fest that was British secondary schooling between 1993 and 1998 (the majority of which was under a Tory government, by the way).

As soon as I became engaged in my education, however, by an exceptional foursome of Sixth Form College teachers (Dermott O’Keeffe, Elaine Varty, Mike Wright, and Sandra Phillips from Solihull Sixth Form College, if you must know) I was unstoppable.  I worked my ass off, above and beyond the call of duty, and I never looked back.

Getting kids to pay attention in school doesn’t come from military drills, smarter uniforms or the repetition of dry facts until they are memorized by rote…it comes from engaging pupils with a substantive and meaningful education that is intrinsically valuable in itself, and not merely a stepping stone to future jobs and qualifications.

With so much talk these days about the “value” of GCSEs, A-Levels and University Degrees on the job market, is it any wonder that our children don’t see their schooling as anything other than an instrumental means to this other – apparently more important –end; working so that they can get the piece of paper that will impress a future employer, not so that they can amass their knowledge of the world and engage their natural curiosities.

As a result, schoolwork is seen merely as an obstacle – a stultifying journey to a dull but necessary destination: qualifications, and thus employment. 

Students mess around in class and don’t respect their teachers because they have been taught by society that nothing they do in the classroom is as important as what they will have to do once they leave it. 

No Troops to Teachers programme is going to change that. 

Technorati Tags: Conservative Party Conference,Conservative Party,General Election,UK Politics,Education,Politics,Michael Gove,Military,Troops to Teachers,Conscription,Privatization

Alternatives to Austerity

Here’s why the debate has to change: cuts, pay-freezes and benefits witch-hunts are not the only solution for sorting out the mess of debt and deficit that we are told ails the treasury. 

Indeed, they are not even the best solution.

In a twenty-four hour period that has seen Labour announce a year-long pay-freeze for top civil servants, then be derided for doing so by the Tories, only for Conservative shadow chancellor, George Osborne, to pledge to do the exact same thing in 2011 if the Conservative Party get elected, it is easy to get wrapped up in the panic-stricken dominant narrative that our economy is in trouble, and the only way to save it is by taking a hatchet to our out-of-control spending.

But that is simply not true.

The economy is in trouble alright, big trouble.  Some of it has to do with the crisis of faith that led to last year’s global downturn, and some of it has to do with the billions of pounds pissed away on unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but none of it has to do with paying out too many benefits, paying public-sector workers too much money, or – despite the International Monetary Fund’s myopic and ideologically distorted opinion – providing decent healthcare.

We are not drowning in a mire of debt and destitution because we spent too much on schools and libraries; nor are we suffering because of the BBC’s licence fee.

The economy is in trouble because billionaire investment bankers decided to gamble with poor people’s mortgages; the economy is in trouble because taking control of the Middle East turned out to be a little harder than we thought, and the richest 2% are not yet getting the return on their investment.

At bottom though: the economy is in trouble because, although the money is there, no one has been bold enough to get it.

I am talking, of course, about raising the taxes of the rich.

Not George Osborne’s meaningless “man-of-the-people” gestures from earlier today – taking the Child Trust Fund away from wealthy parents who don’t need it anyway; denying tax credits to those who earn over £50,000.  Those sorts of superficial measures merely take with one hand whilst giving with the other (ask a person earning £50k a year whether they’d rather have a £250 Child Trust Fund Voucher and a thousand pounds in Tax Credits each year, or get to keep £5,000 more of their money at a lower rate of tax and guess which option they’ll choose?)

I’m talking about finally saying enough is enough, and taxing the rich properly.

I’m talking about finally admitting that, if you earn £100,000 a year or higher, you’re probably earning too much money.  That there is a point at which wealth becomes an obscenity; there is an acceptable limit to how many homes you should own; how many cars; how many yachts.  That, if you can’t live well on a salary of £5000 a month (£100,000 a year, taxed at 40%, and divided by twelve) then you have probably lost all sense of perspective.

When one considers that the much-lauded Tory proposal to cut down on Incapacity Benefit fraud is based around the idea that the £17.50 a week difference between Jobseekers Allowance and Incapacity payment is important enough to claw back that annual saving of £910 per person, it puts such figures into perspective. 

Raise the 40% “higher rate” of income tax to 50% for those earning 100k a year (as it is if you hit the £150k number), and you can add an extra £10,000 a year per person into the national budget immediately: the equivalent of nearly eleven individual Incapacity cuts, and all without having to pay the salary of an “assessor”, or the subsidies for the New Deal on top.

If the Conservative figures are correct, and one in five of the 2.6 million currently claiming Incapacity Benefits can be moved to standard Jobseeker’s Allowance, then they are claiming that taking £910 a year from 520,000 people will raise £1bn over a five year period. 

Yet if you taxed just 20,000 people earning £100k a year that £10,000 (10%) extra, then you would be able to get that extra billion over five years without making a single cut.

In 2007 there were 500,000 people earning £100,000 a year in the South-East of England alone!  By raising their income tax that extra 10%, over a five year Parliament, you would bring in a monumental twenty-five billion pounds in extra funding – twenty-five times the amount of the Tory Incapacity Benefits plan; and that’s not even the whole of Great Britain. 

But the Tories would rather force a disabled or mentally ill person to live on a £3,297 a year Jobseeker’s Allowance than force someone who earns £100,000 a year to pay an extra £10,000 in taxes and still keep £50,000 a year – a take-home salary almost £20,000 higher than the current pre-tax national average.

And this isn’t even mentioning the earnings of the super-rich.

Do you know what ten percent of a million pounds is?  It is £100,000.  Ten percent of a billion: one hundred million.

By raising the taxes of the super-rich millionaires and billionaires to 60% or 70% – even 80% – you could fix the hole in public spending immediately and still leave the ludicrously wealthy with ridiculously high annual incomes.

One million pounds a year, taxed at 70%, would leave our humble millionaires with £300k a year to live on.

One billion pounds a year, taxed at 80%, would leave billionaires with an eye-popping annual income of two hundred million pounds! 

One moderately taxed millionaire (a 20% raise) and one moderately taxed billionaire (a 30% raise) would therefore bring in one billion, five hundred and one million pounds worth of brand new money over a five year Parliament, on top of what they might already pay.  Two millionaire and two billionaires would bring in over three billion pounds in new investment.

I cannot understand why we don’t start talking seriously about doing this, and why taking £17.50 a week from the worst-off in society and freezing the pay of doctors and teachers is the best economic solution our political leaders can come up with?

Technorati Tags: Conservative Party Conference,George Osborne,Back to Work,Cuts,Economy,General Election,Incapacity Benefit,Labour Party,Public Spending,Taxation,Tax the Rich,Redistribution,Rich,Poor

The Tone of Our Oppression

What exactly do I mean by the phrase: “The Tone of Our Oppression” ; and what do I mean when I say: “Labour/Conservative; Democrat/Republican - whoever wins, we lose...but we always lose more with the Right”? 

Indeed: just what the hell is a self-proclaimed “anarchist” doing worrying about party politics anyway – if all politicians are “the same”, and real freedom won’t come until we do away with the state and form self-governing autonomous collectives in some unreachable fantasy utopia, then why get worked up about what these interchangeable corporate quislings are doing in the real world?  Whether we are ruled from the right, or from the left, are we not ultimately being ruled by puppets beholden to powerful elite interests instead of the will of the people – why does it matter which particular puppet is in control? 

Well, the short answer is that, as well as being, at heart, an anarchist, I am also a realist.  As far as I am aware, we do not yet live in the anarcho-utopia that I yearn for; we live in the real world, and in the real world, these things matter.  In fact, they matter a lot.

When I first got into radical politics – a fifteen year old punk rocker with some Dead Kennedys records and a Noam Chomsky book or two – I subscribed to the age old philosophy that all teenage radicals embrace at one point or another: all politicians are the same.  Right or left, blue or red; they’re all bought and paid for by the rich and powerful and the choice is an illusion.

“A one party state masquerading as a two party state”, as Dead Kennedys front-man, Jello Biafra, used to say.  Or, as the old Bill Hicks routine went:  “I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs…I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking…hey, wait a minute – there’s one guy holding up both puppets!”

On the one hand of course – on a fundamental level – this is absolutely true.  The historical record is quite clear, certainly in Britain and the United States: whilst differences in ruling party do lead to superficial differences in policy, on the fundamental areas of economy and foreign policy, there is broad consensus and continuity between all mainstream political parties that hasn’t changed significantly since at least the end of the second world war. 

On the other hand though – can we really write off the importance of these superficial differences if they are the only differences that we have?

Now, I am not saying this as a complete rejection of the idea of third party alternatives (or even no party alternatives!)…but what I am saying, is that, whilst there are no viable third parties that truly represent the people’s interests and have a genuine chance of winning an election, these minimal differences between the two ruling parties (Labour/Conservative; Democrat/Republican) are literally the only area in which we have some sort of democratic control.

Importantly, these minor differences on paper, don’t become so minor when one considers the real-world ramifications of those differences – capitalism may remain the dominant economic system; illegal and unjust wars may continue to be fought around the world; human rights might continue to come only second to the rights of businesses to make profit, BUT…if voting for one party over the other means that even 1% of the population might get slightly better healthcare, slightly better benefits, slightly better schools, slightly better jobs, slightly better pensions, slightly better opportunities; if voting for one party over the other means that it will be just that little bit harder for them to wage unjustified wars, make society-destroying deals with big business, and throw innocent people in jail…then, well, isn’t even that minimal sliver of difference worth fighting for?

Although real, meaningful difference is only an illusion, the existence of these perceived differences between largely similar parties can actually mean more than we think – the perception can sometimes become the – almost – reality. 

Ultimately, in a democracy, our elected representatives must answer to the voters – even if they do so via spin and propaganda in a manipulative corporate press – and so the image that they project regarding their policies and ideas – even if they are lies –  can become an important tool of accountability and change.

If, as is true of most mainstream parties on the right, you unashamedly run for political office on a platform of war, cuts in public spending, anti-immigration, pro-“family values”, and strong law and order, then there is nothing the public can say when you do exactly what you said you would do: wage war, strip benefits, dehumanize foreigners, ban gay marriage and let police beat up protesters, etc. 

However, if, as is true of most mainstream parties on the left, you run for political office under a liberal platform of promoting worker’s rights, using diplomacy instead of force, maintaining a strong welfare state and curbing the abuses of excessive authority, then you have a much harder job ahead of you when it comes to justifying your inevitable kowtowing to corporate and elite power interests. 

When the wars get declared, the jobs start leaving the country, the benefits get cut, the asylum seekers get turned away, the gays still get refused their marriages and the police turn nasty, a left-wing government is a much more accountable and responsive government than a right-wing one, because there is a clear discrepancy between word and deed – this is not what you told us you would do – that even the most jaded voter becomes aware of. 

If they do not explain themselves, therefore, then the people who’s votes they want will begin to look elsewhere; either to their right-wing opponents (as is depressingly happening right now in the UK), or to a much more extreme party of the left.

If one truly believes that all politicians – left or right – work in the interests of power and business, instead of the interests of their citizens, then one must also understand the importance to elite power of there being a safe but viable mainstream left-wing, in whom the people can believe.  If there isn’t, then those citizens with left-leaning tendencies might be inclined to seek (or form) genuinely radical left-wing parties instead.  Ones who won’t give in to corporate power; ones who won’t sell their supporters out.

Watered-down leftist parties like the Democrats in the US, and Labour in the UK, are vital, therefore, for the continued success of the oppressive state system, because they provide an acceptable and futile outlet for popular frustration and anger that might otherwise organize and revolt; as a result, although these left-wing parties will always be a disappointment to the truly radical left, they have an inherent limitation on their treachery that the right-wing parties do not: the mainstream left need the people to maintain their belief in them; they need the people to be convinced that they really do support the workers and represent a better way.

As such, they are much more likely to – and have a proven track record of – throwing the public a bone.  Higher wages, higher employment, better benefits, tolerance of diversity and more funding for public services; these things usually tend to occur much more regularly under a “left-wing” government than they do with governments on the right.  One need only look to the past thirty years for examples of this – neither Labour under Blair and Brown, nor the Democrats under Clinton or Obama have been perfect; far from it.  But in each case – even as rampant neoliberal capitalism continued to rape the world and horrific and unjust wars were waged – it is hard to deny that there were more jobs, more benefits, better public services, an inclusivity of women, homosexuality, people of different ethnicities, religions, abilities and disabilities, etc, and a much less gung-ho, “kill ‘em all”, rhetoric than there was under the right-wing years of Thatcher, Major, Reagan and the Bushes.

Although this truism sadly works both ways (although it is arguably harder for an ostensibly “left-wing” government to cut benefits, wage illegal wars, etc, because of their campaign promises and the expectations of the voters, there is also a dangerous corollary of presumed trust that they won’t do these things, which allows them – as with the ongoing war on terror; or the Clintonoids and NAFTA, etc – to often get away with murder), the important thing to remember is that, outside of the “big picture” issues on which their polices do not differ from their counterparts on the right, on domestic policy and social issues – the “superficial” differences – the left will always have much more pressure and expectation to improve the lives of the majority, than the right, who promise us nothing.

Hence, whilst we might never change the fact of our oppression under the current capitalist system, by merely replacing one set of puppets with another, we absolutely can change the tone of our oppression: by constantly making sure that only the lesser of two evils ever gets control of our lives.

By voting for the left – even if that left is ultimately watered down and endlessly disappointing – we limit the parameters of what passes as acceptable politics in the country, and give a clear and powerful message to the elites: we will not stand for the unbridled cruelties of the right!

Choosing the lesser of two evils might make your stomach churn, and it might well still be evil"; but when two evil choices are the only choices you’ve got, doesn’t it make sense to do everything in your power to make sure you choose the evil that will cause the least harm?

Of course, hand in hand with this sickening compromise comes fighting for the changes you really want to see – creating the conditions within society – through activism, demonstration and protest – whereby the betrayals of the mainstream left are no longer acceptable; conditions where fighting imperialist wars and putting profits before people are seen for the true evil that they are.

But until we get there, I think it is important to remember that to dismiss all politicians as “the same” just because – on every major issue – they all lie and screw us over, is to blind oneself to the importance of their differences: the tone of our oppression that we choose.

I would love to live in an anarchist utopia – self-governed; peaceful; a truly authentic democracy…

But while that just remains a faraway dream, I would much rather live in Britain under Labour than Britain under the Conservatives; or America under Obama than America under Bush.

With a general election coming up here in the UK – and a very real possibility that the Tories will win – and a fledgling Democratic Administration in the US being drowned in the din of Republican fear-mongering, I hope to use this blog to show how these little differences still matter, even when you believe all politicians are the same.

Technorati Tags: Political Philosophy,Politics,Philosophy,UK Politics,US Politics,Labour Party,Conservative Party,Democrats,Republicans,politicians,Anarchism,Mission Statement,Democracy,Left-Wing,Right-Wing,The Tone of Our Oppression

The Next Sub-Prime Collapse…

Robert Fisk reports in today’s Independent, that Gulf Arabs, China, Russia, Japan and France plan to end dealing in dollars for oil.

The demise of the dollar - Robert Fisk, The Independent

There are many who have argued that it was Saddam Hussein’s decision to start trading oil in Euros, rather than dollars, that was a key factor in the decision to invade Iraq, and the US have long been opposed to any change in this current trading system because, without the world needing US dollars in order to buy and sell their oil, the United States’ role as economic superpower could be severely undermined.

Without the need for US dollars on the international oil market, central banks across the world will want to replace their stock of US dollars with the new oil-buying currency instead. When the banks stop buying dollars, then the value of the dollar will fall. When the banks get rid of the dollars that they have, and flood the international money markets with the now unwanted and unusable currency, the value of the dollar will plummet.

If you have ever wondered how a country as rich as America can still be in over a trillion dollars of debt, and yet maintain their appearance of affluence, it is because their unsustainable economy has been propped up for years by loans from countries eager to receive pay back in oil-friendly, US dollars.

Can you imagine what happens to that debt, however, when the dollar becomes unfit for purpose?

This might just be the most important news story of the next nine years…

UPDATE: 8/10/09: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/08/gold-breaks-record-weak-dollar

Technorati Tags: Oil,Dollars,Euros,Petro-Dollars,US Economy,Economy,Economic Crisis,Robert Fisk,Robert Newman,Iraq,China,Russia,Saudi Arabia,France,Japan,Politics,US Politics

The Economic Crisis is Over…For the Banks

 

Another depressingly true column from the always insightful Dean Baker…whilst the people continue to suffer, the banks go from strength to strength!

| Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

 

Technorati Tags: Cuts,Public Spending,Economic Crisis,Bailout,Banks,Dean Baker,Links

The “Assessors” are Coming!

As the Conservative Party begin their Party Conference in Manchester today – thus completing the triangle of terror between the three major parties that marks the beginning of election season here in the UK – David Cameron and co. are already making troubling headlines with their seemingly paradoxical pledge to cut unemployment benefits in order to help Britain’s unemployed.

The logic of the proposal is this: by hiring thousands of new “assessors” to root out the alleged half a million perfectly capable “fraudsters” currently claiming the £80.90 a week Incapacity Benefit instead of the standard £63.40 a week Jobseekers Allowance, the treasury could – theoretically – save a whopping £1bn over a five year term in Parliament.  That £1bn (or £600 million over just three years) can then be ploughed back into funding a new “Back to Work” programme which will further extend the publically funded corporate slave labour programme of New Labour’s “New Deal” (whereby, instead of the government paying unemployed individuals their benefits directly, they pay private businesses the money instead, subsidizing companies to hire the previously unemployed individual at – usually – minimum wage, cut-cost price). 

At the moment, New Deal employers are only obligated to hire their subsidized jobseeker for twenty-six weeks, at which point, the money runs out and, often, the former cash-cow employee is then promptly fired – why keep a non-subsidized worker on when, by creating a new vacancy, you can get another New Dealer on the cheap to replace them?

The Tories new idea is to keep the public funding coming to the private employers for a whole year now instead of just twenty-six weeks, “putting the unemployed firmly back into the culture of daily work” (The Sun - 05/10/09), before they are then too, most likely fired.

So, to recap: to “help” the UK’s unemployed, the Tories will assume that one fifth of all claimants seeking Incapacity Benefit are liars, pay a large amount of public money to hire a heavy-handed team of “assessors” to find them out (3,000 new assessments a day is the stated goal, despite the fact that current opinion, compiled by Labour to fund a similar benefits witch hunt, suggests that only 10,000 medical assessments a week would be realistically manageable) and then, by mean-spiritedly taking the difference of £17.50 a week away from those formerly incapacitated workers found healthy enough to do some sort of work, they will fund a “Back-to Work” programme that allows over twice as much public money as Labour currently spends on the New Deal, to go to private businesses in order to subsidize the employment of former jobseekers for a year instead of just twenty-six weeks.

Now, without even pointing out the obvious – that all of these budget problems and debts could be easily sorted out, without making a single cut in public spending, if any political party in this country had the balls to increase the taxes paid by the rich – it seems to me that this proposed Tory cut essentially takes money away from the most vulnerable and marginalized people in our country – those on incapacity benefits; too ill to work – in order to provide further corporate subsidies to private UK businesses and increase the pool of cheap labour…thus further exacerbating the UK unemployment problem: why hire people off the street at full pay when, once they’ve been forced to sign on for six months, you can get them at half-price?

It bewilders me that a party who promotes such obviously terrible – and arguably unworkable (The Guardian - 05/10/09) – policies are so popular right now in this country.  Cutting benefits to divert treasury money away from public welfare and into private hands is right out of the playbook of the 1979-1997 Tories; the Tories we so resoundingly rejected at the end of the twentieth century after their eighteen year smash and grab…so why do we suddenly feels those policies are any better now?

For the most part – we don’t.  But the nation have become so jaded to the same old/same old approach of British politics for the last thirty years, that it has been duped into a dangerous delusion: the current guys in charge are so bad that the other guys can’t be any worse.

Well, they can be, and I fear that soon we shall see just exactly how much worse they can be. 

Today they came for the weak and the sick…how long before they’re coming for you?

Technorati Tags: UK Politics,Politics,Conservative Party,Conservative Party Conference,Labour Party,Incapacity Benefit,New Deal,Back to Work,Public Spending,Cuts,General Election,Unemployment

Cut NHS costs to pay off debt, IMF warns Britain | Politics | The Guardian

 

And so it begins: Disaster Capitalism 101. Part 1: Structural Readjustment and Enforced Privatization of Public Services...

Cut NHS costs to pay off debt, IMF warns Britain | Politics | The Guardian

Technorati Tags: Politics,NHS,Healthcare,Capitalism,IMF,Anti-Capitalism,Disaster Capitalism,Naomi Klein,Structural Readjustment,Shock Doctrine

THE SUN STAYS CONSERVATIVE – WHAT A SHOCKER!

Yesterday, here in the United Kingdom, tabloid newspaper, The Sun, caused a huge stir by shifting their allegiance from Gordon Brown’s Labour Party, to David Cameron and his Conservatives.

The Sun is, sadly, Britain’s biggest selling newspaper, and I do not use the word “sadly” here because I fear that this shift in allegiance will therefore sway the majority of the newspaper-reading public into voting for the Tories come the 2010 General Election; I use the word “sadly” because The Sun has long been a knee-jerk, reactionary, and right-leaning organ, and the fact that more people in this country read that garbage than any other newspaper, is just hugely depressing to me.

That The Sun has shifted its support from Labour to Conservative, should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the paper’s owner: Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch – the man who’s FOX NEWS channel in the United States is the most reprehensible abuse of the concept of journalism in the whole of human history – is an unabashed conservative ideologue, and he has long used his influence and power as head of the all-encompassing media monolith, News Corporation, to spread his right-wing poison all around the world.  Indeed, The Sun, only ever first pledged its support to the Labour Party back in 1997 after the formerly socialist party underwent a cynical values-changing transformation and mutated into the election-winning beast we have come to know as New Labour.

As you may be aware – having lived through the past twelve years of New Labour rule – the Labour party voted into power in May of 1997 was a very different party, ideologically, from the Labour party of old.  Instead of giving workers a better deal, strengthening unions, and further democratizing the nation, it continued the trend of Thatcherite privatization and free-market neo-liberalism that it had previously opposed, continued selling arms to dictators around the world, took benefits away from the poor whilst increasing welfare for the rich, and waged unnecessary and arguably illegal wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and, throughout its entire time in office, Iraq (daily bombing of the no-fly zones leftover from the 1991 war, continued under Labour long before the 2003 invasion, not to mention the murderous UN Sanctions the Labour Party endorsed).

In other words – The Sun only supported the Labour Party, when the Labour Party became the new Conservatives. 

Not only were New Labour the new Conservatives in 1997, but the Conservatives themselves, at that time, had become an unelectable mess – much like the Labour Party of today.  As always though, this claim of being “unelectable” was not for any of the appalling policies the Conservative Party had promoted over their eighteen years in power, but for more superficial reasons – a public sick and tired of the same old faces and scandals, allegations of “sleaze” and abuses of power… 

We stuck with the Tories through their Poll Taxes and Falklands War, we let them denationalize British industries, pour bombs down on Iraq and terrorize the miners, we let them smash up the unions and take away our jobs…but when they started having sex with prostitutes, or trading in cash for questions, then we decided it was time for a change.

There were so many sound political reasons to oppose the Tories from 1979 to 1997, but we chose the “Lewinsky Objection” instead; which is exactly what we are doing today with the Labour Party!

Since 1997, New Labour have let down its core supporters in any number of ways.  They’ve broken promises, they’ve committed war-crimes, they’ve marched us into a global recession and they’ve part-privatized nearly every public institution you can think of…but that is not why people are sick of the Labour Party in 2009.

They are sick of them because of the expenses scandal (despite the fact that this scandal involved Conservative MPs too); they are sick of them because they don’t like Gordon Brown (on a purely aesthetic level – not because his economic policies as chancellor got us into this financial crisis and helped bankroll the disgusting war on terror, but because he’s “boring”); they are sick of them because Jacqui Smith’s husband watched a porn film or two, and because, after yet another decade of political disappointment, it is easy to lash out at whoever is in power and hope the grass might be greener on the other side (even if all the evidence points to it only ever getting worse!)

So the same thing that happened to the Tories in 1997 is now happening to New Labour in 2009: we are sick of them, but we don’t really know why; because we never spend the time to stop and think about the real causes for our growing hostility and unease, and let the media tell us why we’re angry instead.

What do I really want from my government?

What is it about the past thirty years of Conservative and Labour Party rule that has really let me down? 

What is it that this country really needs.

Enter Rupert Murdoch – there to answer those questions for you without you having to think about it.  Politics is hard, let’s leave the heavy lifting to the experts…

Once Murdoch starts framing his own ideological position as the people’s ideological position, then that vacuum of ideas and sense of confusion in the public’s perception gets filled: they hate the government because there’s too much bureaucratic red-tape; they hate the government because they’re taking too many taxes; they hate the government because they’re letting all those foreigners in; they hate the government because they’re not putting drug-dealers and petty criminals in jail; they hate the government because they’re not letting billionaires like Rupert Murdoch make as much money as they can…

In 1997, New Labour retreated away from the left of their party, the nation was sick and tired of the Tories, and so The Sun backed Labour – the most electable right-wing choice that was going at the time.

As the years went on, New Labour proved their worth to the people at News Corp; they not only sounded like they had turned over a new leaf politically, they had – UK domestic and foreign policies under Labour differed in no significant way from the Conservative policies of the previous eighteen years. 

The people – The Sun’s readership – however, were happy, because, as New Labour screwed them over financially and sent their children off to die (just as the Tories had done), it was done via a brand new narrative – and with a cast of new faces – that differed from their Tory predecessors in enough ways to make it feel like change.

These weren’t Tory cuts – they were Labour cuts.

These weren’t Tory wars – they were Labour wars.

What’s more, the Labour Party were wise enough to throw the public the odd necessary bone – a bit more money into public services here, a little more support for unions there.  In the good-cop/bad-cop routine of one-party systems masquerading as multi-party systems, the good-cop neoliberals of New Labour had to continue the appearance of change in order to maintain a continuity of right-wing policies in matters of the economy and national security.   

So the right-leaning Sun, supported the newly right-leaning Labour Party until – as had happened before with the Conservatives – they started losing their support with the public.  Once that happened, the paper merely resorted back to its roots and repositioned its unchanging support for right-wing politics by backing the seemingly more electable Conservative Party, now that Labour are on the ropes.

The important thing here is that whilst the name of the party behind which Rupert Murdoch’s mouthpiece has pledged its support has changed a couple of times over the past thirteen years, the policies which he and his paper support have always remained staunchly the same.

Murdoch wants his readers to vote the way that he would: right-wing.  The real question needs to be why the British Public continue to repeatedly buy into it: why do we vote for the same failed and disastrous policies election after election – whichever party is selling them –and put up with the same betrayals and violations decade after decade without ever re-examining our core political values and questioning why our available political choices in this country are so limited?

Perhaps, the answer lies in the fact that The Sun remains our most widely read newspaper? 

With Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda machine shouting loudly at the majority of people each day, is it any wonder that they soon start mistaking the illusion of change for the real thing; and the illusion of a change in the paper’s political allegiance, as real news?

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